Christmas lasted a few extra weeks in Bekescsaba. The manger scene and decorations stayed put up for some time in January. It was a good reminder that Christ isn't just a part of the Christmas season.
The traditional Hungarian New Years Eve menu consists of korhelyleves (guzzler soup) and a nice lentil soup for a year with good luck.
Our New Year's party started at Nikki and Tomi's flat. There was quite the variety of food. I made Oreo Truffles. Ivana brought some Serbian homemade pastry type rolls. Nikki and Tomi added in the crunchy Hungarian appetizers and Pisti made the apple (I think it was apple) tarts. The Hungarian gathering was made complete with some delicious csipos kolbasz made by Zsoka and her boyfriend.
Me with Erin (an American setter that stayed for a few days) and Ivana
The year started out with focused practices, in preparation for the Challenge Cup matches against Vilsbiburg, a German club team. We would play them once at our gym and then once at their gym to decide which team would move on to the next round.
Our gym looks a little different for the Challenge cup games. The rules are very specific on the playable area so the new boundaries are built with wooden stands that happen to double as advertisements. There were also the flags of the countries hanging next to the CEV banner. It looked pretty legit.
Then we started for Germany
After driving for six hours, we took a sleeping break at the cozy Popeye Inn just before the Austria-Hungary border.
Another six hours brought us even closer. We stayed at a hotel in a village just fifteen minutes away from the Vilsbiburg gym we would play in. The hotel was very nice and homey except for a few short hours when I felt like a dead body in a freezer. I'm really grateful we got the heating fixed.
The main tourist attraction in this tiny village was this horse. At least from what I could see. I love the simplicity of this tiny village.
Vilsbiburg with the team. We took a little midday stroll through the city before our game.
We ate most of the meals at our hotel. The food there made me feel like I was back at home with some fried dinosaur and fish. I found it quite interesting when the fried eggs were served as part of dinner. The food was cooked perfectly and I might have gained more than a pound during the trip.
After the unfortunate loss against Vilsbiburg, we enjoyed our last German meal at an Italian restaurant. I'm not sure I will try to eat Italian food in Germany again.
The highlight of the Germany trip was finding out that they have doors you can open to set off alarms. I guess the German word "alarmgesichert" wasn't close enough to the English word for "alarm will go off if you touch this."
Bekescsabai food continuing...
After our return to Bekescsaba, Misi invited us to his flat for dinner and game film and made us delicious four cheese penne and bread pudding.
Rakott Kelkaposzta
Zuzaporkolt: This is quite possible the most interesting meat I have tried thus far. It looks like it belongs to the clam family and even has the texture of a clam. The flavor was nice. I'm glad I finally found the courage to try this mystery meat. (The direct translation is "knuckle roasted")
Rakott Burgonya: My favorite dish. Layers of potatoes, meat, eggs, kolbasz, cheese, sour cream. Really good.
We celebrated the arrival of the new American setter by ordering a pizza from Stones Pizzeria. This pizza was awesome! A stuffed crust pizza with a cream cheese topping instead of tomato sauce.
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